Irish Music

GEORGE RUSSELL (A.E.), is one of Ireland's contemporary poets who, with W. B. Yeats, most nearly approaches greatness in his work, as far as we of the present day can estimate that quality. His most recent volume shows more clearly than ever the maturity of his verse, which is at times mystical, always quiet, never exuberant.

"Vale and Other Poems" is a slender volume. Threescore short poems and a half-dozen longer ones are all it contains, yet few collections of contemporary verse are so homogeneous. The verses, almost without exception, strike a note of gentle sadness, a tone which pervades the entire book. The title is significant. One feels that A.E. is saying farewell to all the "sweet-memoried" (to use his own phrase), things of earth. It is not an unpleasant theme, but rather one which lends an atmosphere of things long past to verses delicately and sensitively handled.

For whatever his theme is, A.E. embodies it in flawless verse, a tribute that can be paid to few outstanding modern poets. Contemporary critics, notably Mr. William Rose Benet, have likened Mr. Russell's verse to that of William Blake. In this late volume the likeness is not striking; the Irish poet's lines are more mature, full of a certain half-sombre note that is not found in Blake.

"Vale and Other Poems" is not an epoch-making volume, but then, in this day of poets and poetasters whose name is legion, it is a pleasant one to read. The poems it contains, though quiet, are profound, and admirers of the author will put it down still assured of the poet's gift.